A VPN is a network that uses a public telecommunication infrastructure, such as the Internet, to provide remote offices or individual users with secure access to their organization's network. A VPN can be contrasted with an expensive system of owned or leased lines that can be used by one organization. The goal of VPN is to provide the organization with the same capabilities, but at a much lower cost.
A VPN uses a shared public infrastructure while maintaining privacy through security procedures and tunneling protocols such as the Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) (published 1999). By encrypting data at the sending end and decrypting it at the receiving end, the tunneling protocols send data through a tunnel that cannot be entered in by data that is not properly encrypted. An additional level of security involves encrypting not only the data, but also the originating and receiving network addresses.
In order to provide improved security from sophisticated malicious programs, computer systems may utilize a dedicated partition to host security agents such as VPN security software components, security configuration, virus scanners and firewalls. In these systems, the ability of the security agents to protect a system is dependent on its ability to inspect clear text packets that enter and leave the system. Current VPN software architectures implemented in partitioned platforms keep data sent to a system encrypted until it enters a user partition that supports the VPN. Current VPN software architectures allow data transmitted to the user partition to bypass the security protocols implemented by the security agents in the dedicated partition.